How Green Day, Warner Bros., MAC, Nokia, AT&T Teamed Up for Social Campaign With Potential Audience of 144 Million

How Green Day, Warner Bros., MAC, Nokia, AT&T Teamed Up for Social Campaign With Potential Audience of 144 Million

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The Nokia-AT&T tab on Green Day's Facebook page that allowed fans to participate in the promotion.

Green Day hit New York City's Irving Plaza to help Nokia and AT&T launch Nokia Music in the U.S. with a performance to a packed crowd Saturday night (Sept. 15). The band, gearing up for the first release of its new trilogy -- which includes albums ¡Uno! ¡Dos! and ¡Tré! -- played a rare club gig, cramming 38 songs into nearly three hours in a set that was chock full of both classic and new tracks, including new singles "Oh Love" and "Kill The DJ" and older material such as "When I Come Around" and "American Idiot."

Most of the crowd was there as part of the social media program put in place by the joint venture between the band, Nokia and AT&T -- facilitated by MAC Presents and the band's label Warner Bros. Records -- which allowed the fans the ability to gain points through a series of "social actions," through which they could win tickets, signed merchandise (guitars, boxed sets, Nokia devices), and more -- though a fair share of celebrities and executives made it out to the show as well.

While artists such as Ellie Goulding, Neon Hitch, and comedian Dane Cook took in the show, execs such as Sony Music EVP, global digital business Michael Paull; Warner Bros. Records SVP, brand partnerships and commercial music licensing Lori Feldman; Warner Music Group's SVP, digital sales and marketing Larry Mattera; Jason Miller, president of Live Nation NY; BB Gun Press founder Brian Bumbery; and Green Day manager Pat Magnarella all hung out in the VIP area.

Much of the conversation before the show centered on the three album release plan that the band had rolled out, eschewing a double album or more extended release calendar in favor of dropping all three discs in a four month period. The resultant trilogy -- which the band told Billboard in July was like three chapters in a single book -- will have three distinctive themes, with the first being a return to their pop-punk beginnings, the second having a more "garage" feel, and the third an "epic" along the lines of their 2004 album American Idiot.

But the event in itself, serving as a launch party for new music service Nokia Music in the United States, came together as a partnership between Warner Bros. Records and MAC Presents (representing Nokia and AT&T), and involved a three-fold social media engagement plan. "It's a really authentic way for a brand and artist to work together, because the brand is fully integrated into everything the artist is doing," said MAC Presents president Marcie Allen, noting that the plan was to engage with fans before, during and after the event. "What I love about this, is that there is so much interaction going on with consumers online, and that is what I don't think we see a lot."

In the buildup to the show, Green Day's official Facebook page launched a Nokia/AT&T tab on Sept. 4, using social media engagement platform PunchTab to encourage fans to execute any of five social actions -- checking into an AT&T store, watching a Nokia Music video, tweeting a message about Green Day using the hashtag #NokiaMusicATTGreenDay, following the newly-created @Music_Nokia account on Twitter or liking it on Facebook, and watching Green Day's "Oh Love" video -- which allowed them to gain points and move up a leader board, with the top leaders earning tickets to the exclusive show.

The results were big -- big enough to more than double the level of engagement that PunchTab had ever previously experienced. Over 5,600 people entered to win tickets, producing 85,000 social actions, or an average of more than 15 actions per person. The week of September 7-15 -- when the Twitter hashtag was being tracked -- produced over 8,700 tweets -- creating more than 10.9 million impressions -- as well as 34,000 social media shares, reaching a potential audience of 144 million.

Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong performing at NYC's Irving Plaza on Sept 15 as part of Nokia and AT&T's Nokia Music Launch.

Then there was the engagement at the show; MAC Presents handed out over 1,000 radio-frequency identification (RFID) bracelets to the sold-out crowd, with which attendees could enter social media information and check in to the show. They also set up a photo booth, where fans could take photos of themselves superimposed onto the covers of the three upcoming albums, which would then be pushed out over social media with the show's hashtag.

Finally, the band will be streaming ¡Uno! in its entirety from Sept. 18-midnight Sept. 24, the day before the album comes out, via the Nokia/AT&T section of its Facebook page, while beginning Sept. 26 they will drop the first of three 20-minute segments of their launch performance at the same place, with the second coming in mid-October and the third in late-October. Exclusive behind-the-scenes video from the making of the "Oh Love" video, as well as material from the recording sessions, will be released in the coming days on a microsite available to AT&T customers.

"[The partnership has] given us an opportunity to create all sorts of new content and new ways for the fans to engage and interact with green day and with the content," said Warner Bros' Feldman to Billboard.biz. "When you're a band as big as Green Day, sometimes your audience is so broad that it's hard to engage your core, and clearly the core became extremely engaged."